Words of Wisdom....

Last night I spoke at a dinner honoring the Math Team members at my high school. I was asked to provide some words of wisdom, and I am pretty happy with what I wrote.

Words of Wisdom

My name is Sue, and I am a former Mathlete. That sounds like an opening for a “Mathletes Anonymous” meeting, doesn’t it? Mr. Sullivan asked me to provide some words of wisdom for the Mathletes that are being honored. At first I wasn’t sure what to say, since I wasn’t a “top” mathlete, and I certainly had my struggles. But I turned out well, so I must have done something right. I think the best advice I can give comes down to two words:

Be Distinctive.

I graduated 7th out of 140 students in my class. I played sports, did extra curricular activities, including Math League, like I’m sure many of you do. For many of us it is easy to excel, and being a Mathlete is another way to challenge yourself. I was surprised to find out when I went to college that I wasn’t as distinctive as I thought. I went to Worcester Polytechnic Institute to study mechanical engineering, along with the best and brightest from many schools around the country and around the world. I was no longer distinctive amongst my peers; in fact I was perfectly average. For someone who was used to being very good at everything I did, this was a big shock. I’ll be the first to admit that I did not do all that well my freshman year academically and really questioned if I was taking the right path.

It took a bit of time, but I got my academics on track, and I learned that I had to change my thinking on many things, starting with how to distinguish myself from my peers in ways other than academics. The first big decision I made was to take a year off between my junior and senior year to take a co-operative education job as an engineering technician. This was life changing in so many ways. I found out what the real world of business and engineering was like and learned many skills that were not included in my academic plan. As someone who now reviews resumes and interviews potential candidates for employment, I can’t stress enough how positive it is to see relevant work experience on a resume. It doesn’t particularly matter what your GPA is, and employers generally judge an undergraduate degree the same from any school. Relevant work experience, whether internships, summer hires or co-op terms show your potential employer that you have done something other than study books and take tests, since you’ll rarely have to do those things once you get a job.

Once you’ve learned to be distinctive in order to land a job, you need to switch gears in order to advance within your company, or to move on to different companies as you grow professionally. My advice here is to get as much experience with as many different things as possible, whether this is business areas, software, projects, you name it. My success has come directly from being a “jack of all trades”. My skills are useful in many different projects, I am not pigeonholed into a niche and I have the basic skills to learn a lot of new things along the way.

My last bit of advice in order to be distinctive is to learn to communicate. If you can verbally express your ideas, speak clearly in public to co-workers or clients and create quality written works (memos, reports, presentations, etc), you will be successful. And this takes practice, but it is by far the most useful of all skills you’ll bring to your employer. You could have a 4.0 from a top university but if you can’t convey your thoughts and ideas in a clear, concise way, you cannot be successful.

And never stop being distinctive. Recently I left my employer to start my own engineering consulting company. I did this not so much to be an entrepreneur, but to have the flexibility to stay at home to raise my two sons. It’s been a wonderful experience, although challenging in its own ways, but the experience will certainly benefit me later in life. Best wishes for the challenges in your life.